#NigeriaDecides: Political campaigns everywhere

It’s Nigeria’s general election season and there are huge billboards and posters advertising candidates everywhere you turn.

The presidential and national assembly elections hold on Febuary 14 while the votes for governors and state assemblies will be held two weeks later on February 28.

Nigeria is at another important moment in its history. Who will win this one?

I have covered elections in Ghana and Togo, but none of them have been this tense even before the votes are cast.

In 2008 when Ghana went to the polls, I remember the deadlock between both candidates pushed the battle to the small town on Tain. Even then, Ghana was peaceful.

While in Lome in 2010, even as the opposition failed to defeat the long-term family heir Gnassingbe Eyadema, there was not much disturbance of the peace.

In Nigeria, the opposition All Progressives Congressive hopes to use its growing popularity to unseat the government of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Africa’s most populous country has not seen such a keen contest since the return to civilian rule in 1999. Many say it is now or never for the coalition of opposition parties to defeat the ruling party.